Science: Human Centrifuge

The Navy has described the torture chamber which it will build at Johnsville, Pa. to test the effect of the hops, drops and altitude changes of high-speed airplanes upon the human body. The Navy’s gadget is a gigantic merry-go-round with a cab twelve feet in diameter at the end of a 50-foot horizontal arm. When the arm is revolving 48 times a minute, the cab will circle at 173 m.p.h. At this speed everything inside it will be subjected to “a centrifugal force of 40 “Gs,” much more than the most rugged man can stand.

One “G” is the normal gravitational force to which the human body is accustomed. When an airplane makes a turn, it subjects its occupants to a centrifugal or “quasi-gravitational” force measured in additional Gs. During a “five G turn,” the pilot’s body weighs five times as much as normal. The Navy’s gruesome merry-go-round will determine how much a human body can weigh and still function. Without a protective “G suit” (TIME, Sept. 23), the average man blacks out at about 5^ Gs. His pulled-down facial tissues make him look 20 years older (see cut).

Pouring on the Gs. In the circling cab, the human guinea pig will be strapped in a seat mounted on gimbals, so that it can be locked in any position. The air he breathes can be pumped away to simulate altitudes up to 60,000 feet. As the Gs begin to multiply, a television tube will stare him in the face, flashing his tortured grimaces to a screen in the control room. Elaborate instruments will study his fluttering heart; an electroencephalograph will record his troubled brain waves. An X-ray motion picture camera will photograph the slithering of his internal organs. Before his eyes, little lights will flash. In his ear a buzzer will buzz. He can put out the lights and still the buzzer by pressing the proper buttons. When he no longer can, he will be considered unconscious.

Human beings are not the only victims of G-trouble. As aircraft speeds increase, instruments and radio equipment too will be threatened by mounting Gs. In preparation for military invasion of the ionosphere, the Navy’s new centrifuge will torture the robot crews of unmanned, guided missiles to see if their bloodless bodies can stand the punishment.